Get sterilised in your lunch hour

A clinic is offering women ‘lunch hour sterilisation’ so they can choose not to have babies without having to tell their partners.

Don’t want one of these? It only takes an hour to get sterilised (Alamy)

The Cadogan Clinic claims it is the first in the country to offer the ten-minute ‘walk in, walk out’ service.

Known as Essure, the technique blocks the fallopian tubes and leaves no visible scars.

Women can elect to have the procedure when it suits them – and their partner won’t be able to tell,’ said the clinic.

With a recommended recovery period of 45 minutes before patients can go home – or back to work, no time off is needed and there is little or no post-surgical pain.’

Some women did not want to tell their partners, while others with ‘complicated lives’ were afraid of getting pregnant, said Martin Farrugia, a gynaecologist for the clinic in Knightsbridge, central London.

‘Essure has been a popular permanent contraception option for several years through the NHS but I’m already seeing patients who want to have the procedure at a time and place convenient to them, not when they finally reach the top of an NHS waiting list,’ he said.

It costs £2,700 and involves placing two metal coils into the fallopian tubes through the vagina. Within three months, tissue grows around the coils, blocking the tubes.According to the clinic, the procedure was ‘particularly important for women from cultures that frown on contraception – but who want to take control of their own fertility.’But experts said the service was ‘an ethical can of worms’.‘This seems like a cynical attempt to trade on dishonesty,’ said DrAllan Pacey, a fertility specialist at the University of Sheffield.‘Women have to be able to control their fertility but, in a relationship, people need to be able to have conversations about this kind of thing. Taking a step like this behind a partner’s back is dysfunctional.’